


on account of all the seriousness

by handschuhmaus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Space, playing loose with Ferengi society-building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 23:50:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13914822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus
Summary: Merope happens upon a space station instead of an orphanage.





	on account of all the seriousness

**Author's Note:**

> (title's from the song "Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?" by Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, which I am aware of only because there's a Camera Obscura song "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken")

"I can't quite believe--" the voice was boyish, and obviously curious.

"Then don't," that one demanded compliance, and was also male.

Merope Gaunt had no idea how she had gotten here, or even where here was.

"Hey, you're beginning to wake up. I'm Dr. Julian Bashir, and this is--well, Commander Benjamin Sisko. Do you know where you are?"

She tried to speak up to say she didn't, but found she couldn't form words.

"Here, have a drink of water." she was handed a glass and she took it and drank from it.

"They like Ferengi space," the voice that must be Sisko commented, "even though they don't have anything the Ferengi want, anymore. Gives them an excuse--"

"Benjamin," said the first female voice Merope had heard in years, "it's not her fault."

"What isn't my fault?" Merope rasped out.

"You're on Deep Space Nine," said Dr. Julian Bashir.

She looked at him, frightened, and responded "That means nothing to me."

"You're, ah, also very pregnant," the doctor added, keeping his tone light.

"Yes--I know," she knew that the child was a disappointment to all parties involved, that she should never have chanced having a child with a Muggle, that she was nowhere near good enough to have Tom's child, and also that she was very much unmarried.

"Were you aware that you were traveling on a spaceship?" Benjamin Sisko asked her insistently.

"A--a what?" Merope had utterly no idea what such a thing might be.

"It's a vessel that travels through space--the area beyond the sky, where the sun and moon and stars are. I'm Jadzia Dax. Can you tell us your name?"

"It's Merope Gaunt," she admitted, and waited to feel their eyes on her barren hand, on her swollen belly, and the rejection on judgment she's felt so many times before. But it doesn't come.

"Would you like something to eat?" Dr. Bashir asked in his crisp accent. She hadn't eaten in several days so far as she remembers, but that's the first reminder of it since she woke up.

"Yes, yes, I think I would, but--I haven't been eating," she admitted, more readily than she would like.

"Anything sound good? Anything you don't like or can't eat?" said Dr. Bashir.

"Oh--if I could have stew and hot bread like at the Leaky Cauldron," she said almost rapturously and then immediately regretted the request.

"I think Miles O'Brian has a recipe for Irish stew and soda bread, if that would be acceptable. I don't know anything about the Leaky Cauldron." Bashir cocked a questioning eyebrow at her then walked off at her small nod. The thought passed through her head that he was quite handsome, when she looked at his retreating figure.

"Merope Gaunt, I'd like to--" but Commander Sisko was cut off by an alarm and he and Jadzia quickly exchanged a look before leaving. Merope had no idea what might be happening.

She passed what must have been a few minutes staring around in wonder at the bizarre things surrounding her, so different from the Gaunt hovel. Then Dr. Bashir returned with a tray, which held a glass of water, a steaming bowl of soup, and a wedge of bread studded with currants. 

"Just try to stay calm and eat something. Sometimes things happen here. I'm going to raise the top of the bed so you can eat, alright?" He did somehow coax the bed to move--it made a sort of noise that probably means it's a Muggle device. "Hopefully you'll enjoy the stew."

Abruptly a voice, coming from no one Merope could see, cut in, announcing "Odo to Sickbay. I've got two incoming." And, wonder of wonders, two people (one of whom didn't look quite human) appeared, looking disheveled and slightly damaged.

"What happened to you?" Dr. Bashir immediately moved to ask, waving some sort of box over them as a healer would do with a wand.

"We're just workers. It's a really primitive ship and the computer got pretty confused. Didn't make the clearance for the docking bay, inverted the gravity field, turned up the environment temperature and humidity. Wasn't too terrible, though."

"What made you take to space in something like that?" Bashir wondered.

"Not a lot of options if you want to leave that part of Ferengi space. We were on a better ship, but both of us had minor illnesses that grounded us from leaving with it."

"What--what is a Ferengi?" Merope asked as she broke off a bite of bread. Sisko had mentioned it before.

The talkative worker exhaled sharply. "They're profiteering little bastards. They'll as soon cheat you in a deal as look at you--all they care about is their latinum, but then again they'll procure just about anything for a price. They keep their women locked up and naked at home, the extreme version of the ancient 'barefoot and pregnant'."

As she chewed, Merope peered at her own feet, which proved to be encased in bright red socks, puzzled at the expression.

"That's a bit strong, but I can't say that's incorrect," Dr. Bashir said. "Lt. Dax and Commander Sisko believe you came from somewhere in Ferengi space. No one quite knows around here--because of trade agreements and the Prime Directive, but there are evidently a few rumors that some particularly ...anti-egalitarian colonists settled somewhere there."

"Anti-egalitarian?" Merope repeated carefully.

"In Federation society," Bashir began gently, "persons of all genders, creeds, and types are ideally considered deserving of an equal voice and opportunity and legal treatment. It doesn't always play out that way, unfortunately, but it's what we aspire to."

"So you don't distinguish between Mudbloods and Purebloods?" Merope guessed.

"I-What?" he asked in confusion. "What do you mean, 'Mudbloods'?"

"People whose parents didn't have magic."

"Didn't have magic--" Bashir repeated.

"You've got yourself a crazy one there, doctor," said the worker.

"I'm not crazy," she protested, heedless of every warning she'd ever been given about revealing magic. (But the workers had appeared, practically as they would in apparation!) "I can't do much--never went off to Hogwarts, but I can speak to snakes."

"I-uh," it seemed Dr. Bashir had little enough to say to that. "I'll finish patching up these two, and then we can talk, perhaps. After you finish your lunch."

And she enjoyed the food. It felt a little too rich in her belly, and yet she was going to make every effort to enjoy such a full meal while the opportunity existed. She didn't know when the next one might be.

Dr. Bashir returned and leaned against the neighboring exam table. "So you speak to snakes? Unfortunately we can't test that out just now, since there aren't any on the station."

"You have spaceships and magic boxes," Merope accused. "You can't just be Muggles."

"You came here on a spaceship, Merope Gaunt. And what is a Muggle?"

"A person without magic," she said, with an odd intense hope that he'd understand that.

"Magic," he repeated, and forcefully blew out a breath. "What's it like where you came from?"

"I lived most of my life in a little dirt floor shack in Little Hangleton with my brother and father, until I fell in love with Tom Riddle, and made him love me, and he abandoned me with his child."

"You--made him love you," he reiterated curiously. "Where does magic come into this?"

"Oh, my family is part of a long line of wizards--Purebloods, and Tom is just a Muggle, but I can't do much magic anyway, so maybe our baby'll be a Squib, but he'll be a half-blood regardless." She supposed she was rambling.

"Do you have any place to stay if you..." Bashir trailed off. Merope absently thought that he looked very handsome when he was puzzled. "Anyway, I expect Commander Sisko will set you and the baby up with some guest quarters for now. You just worry about staying healthy. Your baby will need a mother."

"He'll need a father, too," she said puckishly.

The doctor got rather flustered, "Well, I suppose, but children do often turn out well with single parents. And anyway there are a lot of nice men on the station who I'm sure would be good role models. You know, the old proverb about it takes a village to raise a child. Commander Sisko has a boy, Jake. And don't let his tone earlier scare you off--he just doesn't like the Ferengi."

He paused, and then tapped the badge on his chest. "Ops, can someone set up guest quarters for a patient? Merope Gaunt."

Merope thought the reply, from out of absolutely nowhere, sounded a little like Jadzia Dax. "I'll send someone in half an hour, as soon as we've sorted out this mess."

**Author's Note:**

> But would Merope not have an instant crush on a very good-looking doctor who is actually kind to her?
> 
>  ~~tbqh about something pretty bizarre, I'm think I started a fic that was Merope/Leonard McCoy as a teen, so apparently her and ST docs is a thing with me???~~ That was not actually the intention here; it just happened as I was trying to explore the idea of "well what if Merope was exposed to a better society that didn't scorn her for being an unwed mother?" Also there's that thing about historical-ish planets on Star Trek. Search your memories of TOS, you know it to be true!
> 
>  
> 
> ~~I also have no idea if I got Sisko's title right?? I swear I have watched more than 1 DS9 episode since starting this and yet...that detail went over my head??~~


End file.
